


A Cat on the Prowl

by CavannaRose



Series: Cheetah Fics [1]
Category: Injustice League - Fandom, Secret Society of Super Villains, Wonder Woman (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-13 06:36:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5698621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CavannaRose/pseuds/CavannaRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barbara Ann Minerva, former anthropologist, is the covetous criminal known as the Cheetah, a violet femme fatale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own the characters or profit from my work. Blah blah legal stuffs.

Barbara slowly, languorously stretches out, sliding down from the tree in which she had been napping. Sinuously she arches her spine before looking about and examining her surroundings. "I've been quiet for far too long, darlings. I think it's about time that Cheetah made herself known in the world once more." Turning she sharpened her razor like claws on the bark of the tree, before spinning swiftly and slicing through the trunk completely. A cruel smile spread across her face, fangs flashing dangerously. "Still got it."

 

Barbara slowly crept along the roof of the Opal City National Bank, a smile of anticipation across her face. Perhaps bank robbery wasn't her usual foray when it came to crime, but a certain somebody was keeping an artifact here that demanded to be added to her collection. She climbed down the dark side of the building, pausing outside a second story window to carefully cut a Cheetah-sized hole in the glass with her razor sharp claws. The feline female slid into the bank, padding quietly through the halls. Opal City wasn't a hotbed of criminal activity, never had been, so she found only a few everyday safeguards. Cheerfully she ripped the security cameras from the walls, crushing them in the palm of her hand and tossing them aside. It seemed so easy, compared to Gotham and Metropolis.

As she made her way down to the vault where the security deposit boxes were kept, she mulled over in her mind who the heroes that were known to frequent this area were. She thought perhaps Starman, but that blighter was always off on another world, which was why she was raiding his safety deposit box right now, and she could have sworn there was another... Elongated Man perhaps? As if that cartoonish imbecile and his pretty wife were a concern. She had made it to the vault, and using the terrifying strength that being the Cheetah gave her she dug her claws into the sides of the vault door, physically ripping it from the wall and tossing it aside like it was nothing. Ah, there were the sirens, not that she had anything to worry about from a regular police response team. She ripped a good dozen deposit boxes from the wall before she found the one labeled Theodore Knight. Tearing it open she fished out the medallion she'd come all this way for. She could practically feel the magic pulsing through the artefact.

Tucking it into her top she turned and made her way to the front door of the bank, noting that a few squad cars had just pulled up. Chuckling in amusement she booted the doors open, receiving that lovely shocked inhale she had come to adore so much. She flashed her fangs at the crowd of law enforcement. "Darlings, officers, it is indeed not your day. Perhaps you should toddle off before I get cranky? No?" She launched herself at the nearest patrol car, hooking an elbow around the gun arm of the police woman on the right side and tossing her into the man on the opposite. With a feral snarl she jumped to the next car, deftly avoiding a hail of bullets.

The far car desperately radio'd for help as she slit the throat of the partners here, throwing the bleeding bodies towards the final car. Not used to such macabre dealings, the cops had gone silent, looking at her in horrified petrification, and she dramatically licked the blood from her claws. "Ta darlings, it's been real fun!"

 

Barbara Ann Minerva was a complex creature, despite her seemingly simplistic motivations. Burdened with a brilliant mind and endless ambition, life had still seen fit to challenge her, to tempt her further and further away from her original purpose. Did she still crave knowledge? Of course. The curiosity so associated with the feline she resembled had always run through her, and she longed to know everything she could. Unfortunately that was coupled with a covetousness she could barely contain.   
  
She wanted to hoard that knowledge, and the valuable items it encountered all to herself. All this and more ran through her mind as she returned home with the ill-gotten gains from her latest caper. Luckily she hadn't pilfered anything large this time, she was running out of space in her flat, but the baubles were pretty and ancient, some Egyptian princess collection. She'd be researching them late into the night.   
  
A piece of mail fluttered to the ground as she opened the door. Startled, Barbara bent to pick it up. Now who on Earth would send her a postcard? Flipping the garish picture over, a small smile tugged up the corner of her lips in spite of herself and she shut the door, leaning over it to run her eyes across the few brief lines. Snapper Carr. She should have guessed, though how the lovable dork kept locating her she couldn't guess. He never turned her in then, despite everything she did. What they had fizzled out fast, but he'd remained a good pal. Tucking the postcard into the hallway mirror she takes the stolen necklaces down to her study. She had to match them to a set of earrings she'd procured last year and cross-reference a few treatises to confirm their previous owner.

 

Certainly, life had been dull lately. Other than a few chance scores, there wasn't much going on. The horizon was fairly bleak, in that grey, lifeless way. There was that one thing with Selina coming up, but until then things were just dull. She idled through her flat, lightly gliding the pads of her clawed hands across treasures, pausing now and then to lift a shiny necklace or broach up to study in the light from her large bay window,. Perhaps she was daring the world to come bust her, with such an airy, open home, but she wasn't some kind of cave-dwelling mongrel to hide away in some subterranean hovel.  
  
Continuing her examination of the well-furnished apartment, she pauses once more at the cork-board in her upscale kitchen. Here was the only place the decor faltered. In neat little rows were all the postcards that Snapper Carr had sent her over the years. Garish mementos, often featuring kittens. She suppressed another smile. That man was the only one she'd ever let call her that.   
  
Heaving a sigh for what could never be, she moved to the computer, loading up the museum's website. Perhaps they'd have an interesting new exhibit she could liberate. To think she'd find herself nostalgic for the days of the Crisis, fighting on the side of the angels against that fool Darkseid and his Anti-Life Equation. Another smirk crossed her face. He hadn't anticipated that her feline physiology would render her partially immune to his mind-control. As if a cat wouldn't fight tooth and claw for the place where she kept her sparklies. 

 

Her eyes were drawn to the side, to where her favourite Grecian jewelry was kept. Was a piece... missing? She moved to the display, sniffing carefully. There it was, the slight trace of an unfamiliar presence. They had bathed well to try to disguise their scent. but the feline was more than a match for their little tricks.

There were few things in the world that were more dangerous than Barbara Ann Minerva in a full on rage, and none of them were here now. Some filthy todger had actually snuck into /her/ private collection and swiped one of her precious treasures. A thief in her home! The very thought of it was enough to make her fur stand on end and her tail twitch in rage. The safety of her domain had been compromised, and she was killing mad. She stood in the centre of the room, inhaling deeply, taking in the perpetrators scent. Whomever they were, they had best make things right with their God, for the Cheetah was out for blood.

She stalked through the streets, her wrath descending on anyone along the criminal's path. Civilians scattered in horror as she sloughed through the city streets, claws flashing as a trail of gore and blood formed in her wake. None of them mattered, only her goal. Only the fool that had tempted the ire of the fanged goddess of death. She had to pinpoint the daring fool and disembowel him before her fury-based rampage drew unwanted interference.


	2. Chapter 2

Barbara stretched, spine twitching as she rose from the bed, detangling from the sheets slowly as she moved from sleep to waking. Her gaze drifted to the window, watching sunset colour the sky shades of red. Her lip quirked, such a wonderful omen for her evening plans. She fetches her kit, pulling on clothes as she goes over the plan mentally. Brow furrowed as she tucks away a few specialty items for the task.

Finally ready, Cheetah moves out into the night, gliding gracefully down the street on her way to the night’s target, excitement putting a spring in her step. She skirts the edges of the streetlights, clinging to the shadows as she crossed the darkening city streets. She makes it to the target, pacing around the building as she picks her entrance point carefully.

Her main opposition tonight would be the middle aged men working for a low budget security firm. Slim pickings from the bottle of the barrel, bought cheap. From the company’s personal files she knew the lead hand was a careless smoker, filthy habit. Those five minute breaks were killers… the thief smiled cruelly.

She hovered in the shadows of the neighbouring buildings entrance. Her tail twitching in anticipation. Barbara’s ears flicked forward, nose curling in disgust. The security guard was outside on break, she was almost overwhelmed by the stench of his cigarette.

She climbed up the side of the building, just above head height before moving across, positioning herself above the guard’s entrance. With a primal snarl Cheetah drops onto the unsuspecting man, claws digging into his back and shoulders, tearing through his cheap polyester uniform and into the delicate skin beneath. His screams echo down the alley, unheeded by the impersonal glare of the lonely street lamp. She rends his flesh in savage delight.

Minerva sinks her teeth into the back of his neck, shoulders bunching as she tugs at his spinal column, waiting for that satisfying crack. The bones, weakened by years of smoking and drinking, give way, snapping like a gunshot, echoing over his last, gurgling breaths. She batted him about a bit as the life ran from him, pooling amidst the scattered refuse of the alley. The half-smile on her face out of place with her barbarism. Bored with her prey, easily conquered, the coldhearted killer drags the corpse deep into the alley, tucking him behind the large refuse bin.

Using the bin as a prop, she pulls herself up the side of the building. She crouches on a window ledge, tapping on the glass with a claw, a wicked smile spreading across Barbara’s face. She pulled a long thin tool out of her pack, sliding it under the window, opening the latch. Quietly she pushes the window open, swinging her leg over the sill and slithering into the building. 

She slunk down the hallway, keeping low, ears twitching at the smallest sound, nose twitching, senses on high alert. Cheetah padded quietly down the hall, counting off the doors, looking for the right one. She pushed open a door, slinking in as silent as death, unnoticed by the man standing with his back to her.

With an excited rumble in her chest she leaps at him, knocking him forward, bashing his head against the glass with a crack. Viciously she snaps the man’s neck, chuckling with satisfaction at the sound.

Now… There should be one last detail… There! A camera a few feet up. Blisteringly fast she was up the wall, camera dangling from her hand, wires sparking in the air.  Cheetah drops to the ground, carelessly letting the camera fall to the ground. Security would know she was here now, she had to move fast. 

She raced down the hall, flinging open the door to the stairwell and bounding down several steps at a time. She passed the first floor entrance, heading straight for the basement, and the vault. Barbara glared at the electronic locking system, this would be tough to break. She dug the decoder box from her pouch, hooking it up quickly.

She stood at the door, listening to the security guards sweep the building in search of her, none suspecting she’d be down here already. Three slow beeps signaled the program’s success just as two particularly unlucky guards stumbled down the stairs ending up in front of the master thief.

A feral smile crosses the feline female’s features as she dropped into a predatory crouch. One of the men made a strangled sound, turning and dashing away. She let out a triumphant snarl, knocking the other man aside with her tail as she leapt after the runner. In three strides she had him. She hovered above him for a moment, savoring the scent of fear before slowly lowering her teeth to his throat.

Out of no where a heavy duty flashlight hits the side of her head, knocking her aside in surprise. Minerva bounces to her feet, looking around. The second guard stands there, shaking but a grim look on his face as he helps the first man up. She licks her fangs in anticipation. A growling chuckle escapes her lips, wrapping around the two guards like tendrils of fear. The pair turn, both making a run for it now.

She tackles the first one, viciously raking claws across the back of his knee, the sound of screaming and snapping tendons filling the air. The killer loses interest in the injured man, he’s not going anywhere. She begins stalking the second as he desperately fumbles for his radio. She flies at the man, knocking the radio aside, landing on his chest as he toppled to the ground.

The radio hits the floor, button flicked. The other guards in the building are freaked by the horrific sounds permeating from their units. They gather at the security desk, dialing the police as the walkie talkies scream and snarl at their waistbands. The man placing the call stammers, concentration blown as the distinct sound of breaking bone echoes around the room, faces going grim.

Down below Cheetah kicks the bodies aside, her feral nature sated as she returns to her original task, moving faster now. She leaves streaks of blood everywhere as she moves into the diamond vault, trailing her claws through bins of treasure. She lifts a particularly large item to her lips, leaving the bloody traces of a kiss across its facets. Here was her goal, achieved. No one stole from her.

She fills her pouch with a small fine, and exits the vault, sinuously crawling through a basement window as the sound of sirens shatters the quiet morning. Barbara races across the street vaulting across a police car as it comes careening into view, nearly caving in the roof with the force of her landing.


End file.
